Juan Pérez y su madre la única miembro femenina de la familia Fulgénez, así como que sus primeras falditas fueron confeccionadas con un saco azul.
Hacia el comedor, inmune al seductor escaparate de coliflores y aves artificialmente blanqueadas, cestas verdeantes de guisantes, pepinos de fresca lozanía y piezas listas para el asador, encabeza el camino el señor Smallweed.
Allí lo conocen y lo tratan con deferencia. Tiene su reservado favorito, monopoliza todos los periódicos y cae a plomo sobre los patriarcas calvos que los retienen más de diez minutos después.
De nada sirve intentar servirle algo que no sea una hogaza de tamaño natural ni proponerle una pieza ya empezada a menos que sea el mismísimo mejor corte. En materia de salsa es inflexible.
Conscious of his elfin power and submitting to his dread experience, Mr. Guppy consults him in the choice of that day’s banquet, turning an appealing look towards him as the waitress repeats the catalogue of viands and saying “What do you take, Chick?” Chick, out of the profundity of his artfulness, preferring “veal and ham and French beans—and don’t you forget the stuffing, Polly” (with an unearthly cock of his venerable eye); Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling give the like order. Three pint pots of half-and-half are superadded. Quickly the waitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the Tower of Babel but what is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers. Mr. Smallweed, approving of what is set before him, conveys intelligent benignity into his ancient eye and winks upon her. Then, amid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a clatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine